“THE WONDERFUL SHOEMAKER” ON EXHIBIT AT THE SALVATORE FERRAGAMO MUSEUM

03/13/2013

From the crystal shoe of Cinderella to the red one of Dorothy, there are many tales in which the protagonists have special shoes. And in each tale worthy of respect - and just as it is requested by the very archetype of the genre - there is an aid who comes to rescue the main character, often to make her feel and look more beautiful, self-confident, seductive. Sometimes something like that happened in real life, and it is told by the story of Salvatore Ferragamo, whose shoes have been really magical accessories for women and stars of the past who, for the collective imagination, have replaced the fairy-tale princesses, while the villa in the Hollywood hills is the new enchanted castle and the prince is a multimillionaire sport hero, like Joe DiMaggio. And just when the exhibit of the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum dedicated to Marilyn Monroe, who was the wife of baseball player, is about to end, arrives the news of the next event of Palazzo Spini Ferroni in Florence: "The wonderful shoemaker - fairy tales and legends of shoes and shoemakers. "

The exhibit, from March 31^st 2013 to April 19^th 2014, takes its name from the work of Federico Garcia Lorca, whose original manuscript will be on display for the first time in Italy. On one side will therefore be told the story of Salvatore Ferragamo, which of a fairytale has all the elements: the eleventh of 14 children, leaves school when he is nine years old and during the night creates his first pair of shoes, from there he began his adventure to conquer the world, that will learn to know him as "the shoemaker of dreams." But the exhibit will also tell of the shoes in the literary imagination, through the stories and characters that have made it an essential accessory - and sometimes vital – in a plot of the story.

The curators of the exhibit, Stefania Ricci, Sergio Risaliti and Luca Scarlini collected the contribution of prestigious artists: the experts in children's fiction Antonio Faeti and Michele Rak, the film expert Alessandro Bernardi, some fairy tales written for the occasion by Hamid Ziarati, Michele Mari and Elisa Biagini, a special musical score composed by Luis Bacalov, the photographers Simona Ghizzoni and Lorenzo Cicconi, the sculptures of Mimmo Paladino, that are the protagonists of one of the sections and finally two short films created by Francesco Fei, Mauro Borrelli and Rick Heinrichs.